Ashes to Ashes (play)
Encyclopedia
Ashes to Ashes is a 1996 play by English
playwright Harold Pinter
. It was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
, Hammersmith
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.
Devlin questions Rebecca in forceful ways, and she reveals personal information and dream-like sequences to him. In their first exchange, Rebecca tells of a man who appears to be sexually abusing her and threatening to strangle her (1–27). Rebecca tells Devlin that she told the killer, "Put your hand round my throat" (3)—an act which Devlin acts out directly towards the end of the play (73–75), asking Rebecca to "Speak. Say it. Say 'Put your hand round my throat.' " (75). The first exchange is followed immediately by Devlin asking "Do you feel you're being hypnotized?" "Who by?" asks Rebecca. "By me," answers Devlin, adding "What do you think?", to which Rebecca retorts, "I think you're a fuckpig" (7–9).
In response to Devlin's further inquiries about her "lover", Rebecca relates several dream-like sequences involving the man who she has quoted initially (7–27). She tells Devlin that this "lover" worked as a "guide" for a "travel agency" (19). She goes on to ask, "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he took me to that place?" This place turns out to be "a kind of factory" peopled by his "workpeople" who "respected his . . . purity, his . . . conviction" (23–25). But then she tells Devlin, "He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers" (27).
After a "Silence", Rebecca changes the subject abruptly with: "By the way, I'm terribly upset" (27). She complains that a police siren which she had just heard has disappeared into the distance. Devlin replies that the police are always busy, and thus another siren will start up at any time and "you can take comfort in that at least. Can't you? You'll never be lonely again. You'll never be without a police siren. I promise you" (29–30). Rebecca says that while the sound of the siren is "fading away," she "knew it was becoming louder and louder for somebody else" (29) and while its doing so made her "feel insecure! Terribly insecure" (31), she hates the siren's "fading away; I hate it echoing away" (31). (At the end of the play, an "Echo" of her words occurs.)
Rebecca tells Devlin that she had been writing a note, and that when she put the pen she was using down, it rolled off the table:
In another monologue Rebecca describes herself looking out the window of a summer house and seeing a crowd of people being led by "guides" toward the ocean, which they disappear into like lemmings (47–49). That leads to her description of a condition that she calls "mental elephantiasis" (49), in which "when you spill an ounce of gravy, for example, it immediately expands and becomes a vast sea of gravy," Rebecca says that "You are not the victim [of such an event], you are the cause of it" (51). Referring both to the "pen" and anticipating the references to "the bundle" later in the play, she explains, "Because it was you who spilt the gravy in the first place, it was you who handed over the bundle" (51).
After an exchange about family matters relating to "Kim and the kids"—Rebecca's sister, Kim, Kim's children, and Kim's estranged husband (55–63), in which Rebecca may be conveying her own attitude toward Devlin in commenting on Kim's attitude toward her own husband—"She'll never have him back. Never. She says she'll never share a bed with him again. Never. Ever." (61)—there is another "Silence" (65). Devlin says, "Now look, let's start again" (65). Rebecca tells Devlin, "I don't think we can start again. We started...a long time ago. We started. We can't start again. We can end again" (67). "But we've never ended," Devlin protests (67). Rebecca responds, "Oh, we have. Again and again and again. And we can end again. And again and again. And again" (67). That exchange and Rebecca's reference to him earlier as a "fuckpig" demonstrate Rebecca's strong hostility toward Devlin.
After another "Silence" and Rebecca's and Devlin's singing the refrain from song alluded to in the play's title " 'Ashes to ashes' — 'And dust to dust' — 'If the women don't get you' — 'The liquor must' " (69). After a "pause", Devlin says "I always knew you loved me. […] Because we like the same tunes", followed by another "Silence" (69).
After it, Devlin asks Rebecca why she has never told him about "this lover of yours" and says how he has "a right to be very angry indeed" that she did not, "Do you understand that?" (69–70).
After another "Silence" (71), instead of responding, Rebecca describes another sequence, where she is standing at the top of a building and sees a man, a boy, and a woman with a child in her arms in a snowy street below (71–73). In her monologue, she shifts suddenly from the third-person "she" to the first-person "I", and Rebecca (not the woman) is "held" in Rebecca's own "arms": "I held her to me," and she listens to its "heart […] beating" (73).
At that point (73), Devlin approaches Rebecca and begins to enact the scene described by Rebecca at the beginning of the play, directing her to "Ask me to put my hand round your throat" as she has earlier described her "lover" as doing (73–75).
The last scene of the play recalls cultural representations of Nazi
soldiers selecting women and children at train stations en route to concentration camps
(73–85). She begins by narrating the events in the third person: "She stood still. She kissed her baby. The baby was a girl" (73), but she switches from the third person to the first person in continuing her narrative. As this narration develops, an "Echo" repeats some of Rebecca's words as she recounts the experience of a woman who has walked onto a train platform with a "baby" wrapped up "in a bundle," beginning with: "They took us to the trains" ("ECHO: the trains"), and "They were taking the babies away" ("ECHO: the babies away"), and then Rebecca shifts from using the third person "she" to using the first-person "I" (77): "I took my baby and wrapped it in my shawl" (77). Finally, Rebecca (or the woman or women with whom she has identified from such past historical events) is forced to give her baby wrapped in "the bundle" ("the bundle" being a synecdoche
for the baby wrapped up in a shawl) to one of the men. As if Rebecca were such a woman, she recalls getting on the train, describing how "we arrived at this place"—thus recalling the other "place" about which she asks Devlin early in the play, the "factory": "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he [her purported lover] took me to that place?" (21).
In the final lines of the play, as if the woman's experience were her own, Rebecca shifts again significantly from the third-person "she" used earlier relating to the woman to the first-person "I", while denying that she ever had or ever knew of "any baby":
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
, Hammersmith
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.
Ashes to Ashes is a 1996 play by English
playwright Harold Pinter
. It was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar,Ashes to Ashes, Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Archived Webpage. Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
, Hammersmith
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.Merritt, "Ashes to Ashes in New York" and "Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes: Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust" 83. Its English première by the Royal Court Theatre opened after the Dutch première, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London
, on 12 September 1996.
, Ashes to Ashes (London: Faber and Faber, 1996; New York: Grove Press, 1997) 1 (and n. pag. front matter). Subsequent page references to the Faber and Faber ed. will appear within parentheses in the text.
Place: "A house in the country […] Early evening. Summer" (1).
Devlin questions Rebecca in forceful ways, and she reveals personal information and dream-like sequences to him. In their first exchange, Rebecca tells of a man who appears to be sexually abusing her and threatening to strangle her (1–27). Rebecca tells Devlin that she told the killer, "Put your hand round my throat" (3)—an act which Devlin acts out directly towards the end of the play (73–75), asking Rebecca to "Speak. Say it. Say 'Put your hand round my throat.' " (75). The first exchange is followed immediately by Devlin asking "Do you feel you're being hypnotized?" "Who by?" asks Rebecca. "By me," answers Devlin, adding "What do you think?", to which Rebecca retorts, "I think you're a fuckpig" (7–9).
In response to Devlin's further inquiries about her "lover", Rebecca relates several dream-like sequences involving the man who she has quoted initially (7–27). She tells Devlin that this "lover" worked as a "guide" for a "travel agency" (19). She goes on to ask, "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he took me to that place?" This place turns out to be "a kind of factory" peopled by his "workpeople" who "respected his . . . purity, his . . . conviction" (23–25). But then she tells Devlin, "He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers" (27).
After a "Silence", Rebecca changes the subject abruptly with: "By the way, I'm terribly upset" (27). She complains that a police siren which she had just heard has disappeared into the distance. Devlin replies that the police are always busy, and thus another siren will start up at any time and "you can take comfort in that at least. Can't you? You'll never be lonely again. You'll never be without a police siren. I promise you" (29–30). Rebecca says that while the sound of the siren is "fading away," she "knew it was becoming louder and louder for somebody else" (29) and while its doing so made her "feel insecure! Terribly insecure" (31), she hates the siren's "fading away; I hate it echoing away" (31). (At the end of the play, an "Echo" of her words occurs.)
Rebecca tells Devlin that she had been writing a note, and that when she put the pen she was using down, it rolled off the table:
In another monologue Rebecca describes herself looking out the window of a summer house and seeing a crowd of people being led by "guides" toward the ocean, which they disappear into like lemmings (47–49). That leads to her description of a condition that she calls "mental elephantiasis" (49), in which "when you spill an ounce of gravy, for example, it immediately expands and becomes a vast sea of gravy," Rebecca says that "You are not the victim [of such an event], you are the cause of it" (51). Referring both to the "pen" and anticipating the references to "the bundle" later in the play, she explains, "Because it was you who spilt the gravy in the first place, it was you who handed over the bundle" (51).
After an exchange about family matters relating to "Kim and the kids"—Rebecca's sister, Kim, Kim's children, and Kim's estranged husband (55–63), in which Rebecca may be conveying her own attitude toward Devlin in commenting on Kim's attitude toward her own husband—"She'll never have him back. Never. She says she'll never share a bed with him again. Never. Ever." (61)—there is another "Silence" (65). Devlin says, "Now look, let's start again" (65). Rebecca tells Devlin, "I don't think we can start again. We started...a long time ago. We started. We can't start again. We can end again" (67). "But we've never ended," Devlin protests (67). Rebecca responds, "Oh, we have. Again and again and again. And we can end again. And again and again. And again" (67). That exchange and Rebecca's reference to him earlier as a "fuckpig" demonstrate Rebecca's strong hostility toward Devlin.
After another "Silence" and Rebecca's and Devlin's singing the refrain from song alluded to in the play's title " 'Ashes to ashes' — 'And dust to dust' — 'If the women don't get you' — 'The liquor must' " (69). After a "pause", Devlin says "I always knew you loved me. […] Because we like the same tunes", followed by another "Silence" (69).
After it, Devlin asks Rebecca why she has never told him about "this lover of yours" and says how he has "a right to be very angry indeed" that she did not, "Do you understand that?" (69–70).
After another "Silence" (71), instead of responding, Rebecca describes another sequence, where she is standing at the top of a building and sees a man, a boy, and a woman with a child in her arms in a snowy street below (71–73). In her monologue, she shifts suddenly from the third-person "she" to the first-person "I", and Rebecca (not the woman) is "held" in Rebecca's own "arms": "I held her to me," and she listens to its "heart […] beating" (73).
At that point (73), Devlin approaches Rebecca and begins to enact the scene described by Rebecca at the beginning of the play, directing her to "Ask me to put my hand round your throat" as she has earlier described her "lover" as doing (73–75).
The last scene of the play recalls cultural representations of Nazi
soldiers selecting women and children at train stations en route to concentration camps
(73–85). She begins by narrating the events in the third person: "She stood still. She kissed her baby. The baby was a girl" (73), but she switches from the third person to the first person in continuing her narrative. As this narration develops, an "Echo" repeats some of Rebecca's words as she recounts the experience of a woman who has walked onto a train platform with a "baby" wrapped up "in a bundle," beginning with: "They took us to the trains" ("ECHO: the trains"), and "They were taking the babies away" ("ECHO: the babies away"), and then Rebecca shifts from using the third person "she" to using the first-person "I" (77): "I took my baby and wrapped it in my shawl" (77). Finally, Rebecca (or the woman or women with whom she has identified from such past historical events) is forced to give her baby wrapped in "the bundle" ("the bundle" being a synecdoche
for the baby wrapped up in a shawl) to one of the men. As if Rebecca were such a woman, she recalls getting on the train, describing how "we arrived at this place"—thus recalling the other "place" about which she asks Devlin early in the play, the "factory": "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he [her purported lover] took me to that place?" (21).
In the final lines of the play, as if the woman's experience were her own, Rebecca shifts again significantly from the third-person "she" used earlier relating to the woman to the first-person "I", while denying that she ever had or ever knew of "any baby":
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
, Hammersmith
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.
Ashes to Ashes is a 1996 play by English
playwright Harold Pinter
. It was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar,Ashes to Ashes, Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Archived Webpage. Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
, Hammersmith
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.Merritt, "Ashes to Ashes in New York" and "Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes: Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust" 83. Its English première by the Royal Court Theatre opened after the Dutch première, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London
, on 12 September 1996.
, Ashes to Ashes (London: Faber and Faber, 1996; New York: Grove Press, 1997) 1 (and n. pag. front matter). Subsequent page references to the Faber and Faber ed. will appear within parentheses in the text.
Place: "A house in the country […] Early evening. Summer" (1).
Devlin questions Rebecca in forceful ways, and she reveals personal information and dream-like sequences to him. In their first exchange, Rebecca tells of a man who appears to be sexually abusing her and threatening to strangle her (1–27). Rebecca tells Devlin that she told the killer, "Put your hand round my throat" (3)—an act which Devlin acts out directly towards the end of the play (73–75), asking Rebecca to "Speak. Say it. Say 'Put your hand round my throat.' " (75). The first exchange is followed immediately by Devlin asking "Do you feel you're being hypnotized?" "Who by?" asks Rebecca. "By me," answers Devlin, adding "What do you think?", to which Rebecca retorts, "I think you're a fuckpig" (7–9).
In response to Devlin's further inquiries about her "lover", Rebecca relates several dream-like sequences involving the man who she has quoted initially (7–27). She tells Devlin that this "lover" worked as a "guide" for a "travel agency" (19). She goes on to ask, "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he took me to that place?" This place turns out to be "a kind of factory" peopled by his "workpeople" who "respected his . . . purity, his . . . conviction" (23–25). But then she tells Devlin, "He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers" (27).
After a "Silence", Rebecca changes the subject abruptly with: "By the way, I'm terribly upset" (27). She complains that a police siren which she had just heard has disappeared into the distance. Devlin replies that the police are always busy, and thus another siren will start up at any time and "you can take comfort in that at least. Can't you? You'll never be lonely again. You'll never be without a police siren. I promise you" (29–30). Rebecca says that while the sound of the siren is "fading away," she "knew it was becoming louder and louder for somebody else" (29) and while its doing so made her "feel insecure! Terribly insecure" (31), she hates the siren's "fading away; I hate it echoing away" (31). (At the end of the play, an "Echo" of her words occurs.)
Rebecca tells Devlin that she had been writing a note, and that when she put the pen she was using down, it rolled off the table:
In another monologue Rebecca describes herself looking out the window of a summer house and seeing a crowd of people being led by "guides" toward the ocean, which they disappear into like lemmings (47–49). That leads to her description of a condition that she calls "mental elephantiasis" (49), in which "when you spill an ounce of gravy, for example, it immediately expands and becomes a vast sea of gravy," Rebecca says that "You are not the victim [of such an event], you are the cause of it" (51). Referring both to the "pen" and anticipating the references to "the bundle" later in the play, she explains, "Because it was you who spilt the gravy in the first place, it was you who handed over the bundle" (51).
After an exchange about family matters relating to "Kim and the kids"—Rebecca's sister, Kim, Kim's children, and Kim's estranged husband (55–63), in which Rebecca may be conveying her own attitude toward Devlin in commenting on Kim's attitude toward her own husband—"She'll never have him back. Never. She says she'll never share a bed with him again. Never. Ever." (61)—there is another "Silence" (65). Devlin says, "Now look, let's start again" (65). Rebecca tells Devlin, "I don't think we can start again. We started...a long time ago. We started. We can't start again. We can end again" (67). "But we've never ended," Devlin protests (67). Rebecca responds, "Oh, we have. Again and again and again. And we can end again. And again and again. And again" (67). That exchange and Rebecca's reference to him earlier as a "fuckpig" demonstrate Rebecca's strong hostility toward Devlin.
After another "Silence" and Rebecca's and Devlin's singing the refrain from song alluded to in the play's title " 'Ashes to ashes' — 'And dust to dust' — 'If the women don't get you' — 'The liquor must' " (69). After a "pause", Devlin says "I always knew you loved me. […] Because we like the same tunes", followed by another "Silence" (69).
After it, Devlin asks Rebecca why she has never told him about "this lover of yours" and says how he has "a right to be very angry indeed" that she did not, "Do you understand that?" (69–70).
After another "Silence" (71), instead of responding, Rebecca describes another sequence, where she is standing at the top of a building and sees a man, a boy, and a woman with a child in her arms in a snowy street below (71–73). In her monologue, she shifts suddenly from the third-person "she" to the first-person "I", and Rebecca (not the woman) is "held" in Rebecca's own "arms": "I held her to me," and she listens to its "heart […] beating" (73).
At that point (73), Devlin approaches Rebecca and begins to enact the scene described by Rebecca at the beginning of the play, directing her to "Ask me to put my hand round your throat" as she has earlier described her "lover" as doing (73–75).
The last scene of the play recalls cultural representations of Nazi
soldiers selecting women and children at train stations en route to concentration camps
(73–85). She begins by narrating the events in the third person: "She stood still. She kissed her baby. The baby was a girl" (73), but she switches from the third person to the first person in continuing her narrative. As this narration develops, an "Echo" repeats some of Rebecca's words as she recounts the experience of a woman who has walked onto a train platform with a "baby" wrapped up "in a bundle," beginning with: "They took us to the trains" ("ECHO: the trains"), and "They were taking the babies away" ("ECHO: the babies away"), and then Rebecca shifts from using the third person "she" to using the first-person "I" (77): "I took my baby and wrapped it in my shawl" (77). Finally, Rebecca (or the woman or women with whom she has identified from such past historical events) is forced to give her baby wrapped in "the bundle" ("the bundle" being a synecdoche
for the baby wrapped up in a shawl) to one of the men. As if Rebecca were such a woman, she recalls getting on the train, describing how "we arrived at this place"—thus recalling the other "place" about which she asks Devlin early in the play, the "factory": "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he [her purported lover] took me to that place?" (21).
In the final lines of the play, as if the woman's experience were her own, Rebecca shifts again significantly from the third-person "she" used earlier relating to the woman to the first-person "I", while denying that she ever had or ever knew of "any baby":
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
, Hammersmith
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.
The translation and dramaturgy were by Janine Brogt, the set was designed by Paul Gallis, and lighting was designed by Henk Bergsma, and the cast included:
The cast included:
and designed by Eileen Diss for the Royal Court Theatre
, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London
, opening on 12 September 1996, with the following cast:
Lighting was designed by Mick Hughes, costumes designed by Tom Rand, and sound designed by Tom Lishman.
, was part of the 1998–1999 Laura Pels Theatre Season at the Gramercy Theatre, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company
, in New York City
, from 7 February to 9 May 1999."Ashes to Ashes: New York Première", Roundabouttheatre.org, 1998–1999 season (archived performances). Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. Lindsay Duncan
reprised her role as Rebecca, and David Strathairn
played the role of Devlin. Set and costume design was by Tony Walton
, lighting design by Richard Pilbrow
, and sound design by G. Thomas Clark.
, directed by Katie Mitchell
, at the Royal Court Theatre
, which went on to be performed at the Harold Pinter Festival at the Lincoln Center Festival 2001
, in New York City
, in July and August 2001."Mountain Language and Ashes to Ashes", HaroldPinter.org. Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. (Includes full texts of contemporaneous reviews by Rachel Halliburton in The Evening Standard and Alastair Macaulay in the Financial Times
.)
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
playwright Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
. It was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands' largest repertory company. Its home base is the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam.-History:...
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is a production studio, theatre and independent cinema on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. It plays host to contemporary and international dramatic and dance performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.-History:In 1933, the...
, Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.
Devlin questions Rebecca in forceful ways, and she reveals personal information and dream-like sequences to him. In their first exchange, Rebecca tells of a man who appears to be sexually abusing her and threatening to strangle her (1–27). Rebecca tells Devlin that she told the killer, "Put your hand round my throat" (3)—an act which Devlin acts out directly towards the end of the play (73–75), asking Rebecca to "Speak. Say it. Say 'Put your hand round my throat.' " (75). The first exchange is followed immediately by Devlin asking "Do you feel you're being hypnotized?" "Who by?" asks Rebecca. "By me," answers Devlin, adding "What do you think?", to which Rebecca retorts, "I think you're a fuckpig" (7–9).
In response to Devlin's further inquiries about her "lover", Rebecca relates several dream-like sequences involving the man who she has quoted initially (7–27). She tells Devlin that this "lover" worked as a "guide" for a "travel agency" (19). She goes on to ask, "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he took me to that place?" This place turns out to be "a kind of factory" peopled by his "workpeople" who "respected his . . . purity, his . . . conviction" (23–25). But then she tells Devlin, "He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers" (27).
After a "Silence", Rebecca changes the subject abruptly with: "By the way, I'm terribly upset" (27). She complains that a police siren which she had just heard has disappeared into the distance. Devlin replies that the police are always busy, and thus another siren will start up at any time and "you can take comfort in that at least. Can't you? You'll never be lonely again. You'll never be without a police siren. I promise you" (29–30). Rebecca says that while the sound of the siren is "fading away," she "knew it was becoming louder and louder for somebody else" (29) and while its doing so made her "feel insecure! Terribly insecure" (31), she hates the siren's "fading away; I hate it echoing away" (31). (At the end of the play, an "Echo" of her words occurs.)
Rebecca tells Devlin that she had been writing a note, and that when she put the pen she was using down, it rolled off the table:
REBECCA: It rolled right off, onto the carpet. In front of my eyes.
DEVLIN: Good God.
REBECCA: This pen, this perfectly innocent pen.
DEVLIN: You can't know it was innocent.
REBECCA: Why not?
DEVLIN: Because you don't know where it had been. You don't know how many other hands have held it, how many other hands have written with it, what other people have been doing with it. You know nothing of its history. You know nothing of its parents' history.
REBECCA: A pen has no parents. (33–39)
In another monologue Rebecca describes herself looking out the window of a summer house and seeing a crowd of people being led by "guides" toward the ocean, which they disappear into like lemmings (47–49). That leads to her description of a condition that she calls "mental elephantiasis" (49), in which "when you spill an ounce of gravy, for example, it immediately expands and becomes a vast sea of gravy," Rebecca says that "You are not the victim [of such an event], you are the cause of it" (51). Referring both to the "pen" and anticipating the references to "the bundle" later in the play, she explains, "Because it was you who spilt the gravy in the first place, it was you who handed over the bundle" (51).
After an exchange about family matters relating to "Kim and the kids"—Rebecca's sister, Kim, Kim's children, and Kim's estranged husband (55–63), in which Rebecca may be conveying her own attitude toward Devlin in commenting on Kim's attitude toward her own husband—"She'll never have him back. Never. She says she'll never share a bed with him again. Never. Ever." (61)—there is another "Silence" (65). Devlin says, "Now look, let's start again" (65). Rebecca tells Devlin, "I don't think we can start again. We started...a long time ago. We started. We can't start again. We can end again" (67). "But we've never ended," Devlin protests (67). Rebecca responds, "Oh, we have. Again and again and again. And we can end again. And again and again. And again" (67). That exchange and Rebecca's reference to him earlier as a "fuckpig" demonstrate Rebecca's strong hostility toward Devlin.
After another "Silence" and Rebecca's and Devlin's singing the refrain from song alluded to in the play's title " 'Ashes to ashes' — 'And dust to dust' — 'If the women don't get you' — 'The liquor must' " (69). After a "pause", Devlin says "I always knew you loved me. […] Because we like the same tunes", followed by another "Silence" (69).
After it, Devlin asks Rebecca why she has never told him about "this lover of yours" and says how he has "a right to be very angry indeed" that she did not, "Do you understand that?" (69–70).
After another "Silence" (71), instead of responding, Rebecca describes another sequence, where she is standing at the top of a building and sees a man, a boy, and a woman with a child in her arms in a snowy street below (71–73). In her monologue, she shifts suddenly from the third-person "she" to the first-person "I", and Rebecca (not the woman) is "held" in Rebecca's own "arms": "I held her to me," and she listens to its "heart […] beating" (73).
At that point (73), Devlin approaches Rebecca and begins to enact the scene described by Rebecca at the beginning of the play, directing her to "Ask me to put my hand round your throat" as she has earlier described her "lover" as doing (73–75).
The last scene of the play recalls cultural representations of Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
soldiers selecting women and children at train stations en route to concentration camps
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
(73–85). She begins by narrating the events in the third person: "She stood still. She kissed her baby. The baby was a girl" (73), but she switches from the third person to the first person in continuing her narrative. As this narration develops, an "Echo" repeats some of Rebecca's words as she recounts the experience of a woman who has walked onto a train platform with a "baby" wrapped up "in a bundle," beginning with: "They took us to the trains" ("ECHO: the trains"), and "They were taking the babies away" ("ECHO: the babies away"), and then Rebecca shifts from using the third person "she" to using the first-person "I" (77): "I took my baby and wrapped it in my shawl" (77). Finally, Rebecca (or the woman or women with whom she has identified from such past historical events) is forced to give her baby wrapped in "the bundle" ("the bundle" being a synecdoche
Synecdoche
Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
for the baby wrapped up in a shawl) to one of the men. As if Rebecca were such a woman, she recalls getting on the train, describing how "we arrived at this place"—thus recalling the other "place" about which she asks Devlin early in the play, the "factory": "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he [her purported lover] took me to that place?" (21).
In the final lines of the play, as if the woman's experience were her own, Rebecca shifts again significantly from the third-person "she" used earlier relating to the woman to the first-person "I", while denying that she ever had or ever knew of "any baby":
REBECCA: And I said what baby
ECHO: what baby
REBECCA: I don't have a baby
ECHO: a baby
REBECCA: I don't know of any baby
ECHO: of any baby
Pause.
REBECCA: I don't know of any baby
Long silence.
BLACKOUT. (83–84)
World première
Ashes to Ashes was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep AmsterdamToneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands' largest repertory company. Its home base is the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam.-History:...
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is a production studio, theatre and independent cinema on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. It plays host to contemporary and international dramatic and dance performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.-History:In 1933, the...
, Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.
Ashes to Ashes is a 1996 play by English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
playwright Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
. It was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands' largest repertory company. Its home base is the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam.-History:...
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar,Ashes to Ashes, Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands' largest repertory company. Its home base is the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam.-History:...
Archived Webpage. Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is a production studio, theatre and independent cinema on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. It plays host to contemporary and international dramatic and dance performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.-History:In 1933, the...
, Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.Merritt, "Ashes to Ashes in New York" and "Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes: Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust" 83. Its English première by the Royal Court Theatre opened after the Dutch première, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, on 12 September 1996.
Setting
"Time: Now. .... A house in the country."Harold PinterHarold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
, Ashes to Ashes (London: Faber and Faber, 1996; New York: Grove Press, 1997) 1 (and n. pag. front matter). Subsequent page references to the Faber and Faber ed. will appear within parentheses in the text.
Setting
"Time: Now" (n. pag. [ii])Place: "A house in the country […] Early evening. Summer" (1).
Synopsis
The one-act play opens with Devlin and Rebecca, described as "Both in their forties", talking in what appears to be a home living room on an early summer evening. As the play develops, it becomes clear that Devlin and Rebecca are probably married, although their relationship to each other is not defined explicitly; it must be inferred. Initially, Devlin seems Rebecca's husband or lover, her therapist, and potentially her murderer. Some critics have described their discussion as more between a therapist and his patient than between two lovers or between a husband and a wife.Devlin questions Rebecca in forceful ways, and she reveals personal information and dream-like sequences to him. In their first exchange, Rebecca tells of a man who appears to be sexually abusing her and threatening to strangle her (1–27). Rebecca tells Devlin that she told the killer, "Put your hand round my throat" (3)—an act which Devlin acts out directly towards the end of the play (73–75), asking Rebecca to "Speak. Say it. Say 'Put your hand round my throat.' " (75). The first exchange is followed immediately by Devlin asking "Do you feel you're being hypnotized?" "Who by?" asks Rebecca. "By me," answers Devlin, adding "What do you think?", to which Rebecca retorts, "I think you're a fuckpig" (7–9).
In response to Devlin's further inquiries about her "lover", Rebecca relates several dream-like sequences involving the man who she has quoted initially (7–27). She tells Devlin that this "lover" worked as a "guide" for a "travel agency" (19). She goes on to ask, "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he took me to that place?" This place turns out to be "a kind of factory" peopled by his "workpeople" who "respected his . . . purity, his . . . conviction" (23–25). But then she tells Devlin, "He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers" (27).
After a "Silence", Rebecca changes the subject abruptly with: "By the way, I'm terribly upset" (27). She complains that a police siren which she had just heard has disappeared into the distance. Devlin replies that the police are always busy, and thus another siren will start up at any time and "you can take comfort in that at least. Can't you? You'll never be lonely again. You'll never be without a police siren. I promise you" (29–30). Rebecca says that while the sound of the siren is "fading away," she "knew it was becoming louder and louder for somebody else" (29) and while its doing so made her "feel insecure! Terribly insecure" (31), she hates the siren's "fading away; I hate it echoing away" (31). (At the end of the play, an "Echo" of her words occurs.)
Rebecca tells Devlin that she had been writing a note, and that when she put the pen she was using down, it rolled off the table:
REBECCA: It rolled right off, onto the carpet. In front of my eyes.
DEVLIN: Good God.
REBECCA: This pen, this perfectly innocent pen.
DEVLIN: You can't know it was innocent.
REBECCA: Why not?
DEVLIN: Because you don't know where it had been. You don't know how many other hands have held it, how many other hands have written with it, what other people have been doing with it. You know nothing of its history. You know nothing of its parents' history.
REBECCA: A pen has no parents. (33–39)
In another monologue Rebecca describes herself looking out the window of a summer house and seeing a crowd of people being led by "guides" toward the ocean, which they disappear into like lemmings (47–49). That leads to her description of a condition that she calls "mental elephantiasis" (49), in which "when you spill an ounce of gravy, for example, it immediately expands and becomes a vast sea of gravy," Rebecca says that "You are not the victim [of such an event], you are the cause of it" (51). Referring both to the "pen" and anticipating the references to "the bundle" later in the play, she explains, "Because it was you who spilt the gravy in the first place, it was you who handed over the bundle" (51).
After an exchange about family matters relating to "Kim and the kids"—Rebecca's sister, Kim, Kim's children, and Kim's estranged husband (55–63), in which Rebecca may be conveying her own attitude toward Devlin in commenting on Kim's attitude toward her own husband—"She'll never have him back. Never. She says she'll never share a bed with him again. Never. Ever." (61)—there is another "Silence" (65). Devlin says, "Now look, let's start again" (65). Rebecca tells Devlin, "I don't think we can start again. We started...a long time ago. We started. We can't start again. We can end again" (67). "But we've never ended," Devlin protests (67). Rebecca responds, "Oh, we have. Again and again and again. And we can end again. And again and again. And again" (67). That exchange and Rebecca's reference to him earlier as a "fuckpig" demonstrate Rebecca's strong hostility toward Devlin.
After another "Silence" and Rebecca's and Devlin's singing the refrain from song alluded to in the play's title " 'Ashes to ashes' — 'And dust to dust' — 'If the women don't get you' — 'The liquor must' " (69). After a "pause", Devlin says "I always knew you loved me. […] Because we like the same tunes", followed by another "Silence" (69).
After it, Devlin asks Rebecca why she has never told him about "this lover of yours" and says how he has "a right to be very angry indeed" that she did not, "Do you understand that?" (69–70).
After another "Silence" (71), instead of responding, Rebecca describes another sequence, where she is standing at the top of a building and sees a man, a boy, and a woman with a child in her arms in a snowy street below (71–73). In her monologue, she shifts suddenly from the third-person "she" to the first-person "I", and Rebecca (not the woman) is "held" in Rebecca's own "arms": "I held her to me," and she listens to its "heart […] beating" (73).
At that point (73), Devlin approaches Rebecca and begins to enact the scene described by Rebecca at the beginning of the play, directing her to "Ask me to put my hand round your throat" as she has earlier described her "lover" as doing (73–75).
The last scene of the play recalls cultural representations of Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
soldiers selecting women and children at train stations en route to concentration camps
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
(73–85). She begins by narrating the events in the third person: "She stood still. She kissed her baby. The baby was a girl" (73), but she switches from the third person to the first person in continuing her narrative. As this narration develops, an "Echo" repeats some of Rebecca's words as she recounts the experience of a woman who has walked onto a train platform with a "baby" wrapped up "in a bundle," beginning with: "They took us to the trains" ("ECHO: the trains"), and "They were taking the babies away" ("ECHO: the babies away"), and then Rebecca shifts from using the third person "she" to using the first-person "I" (77): "I took my baby and wrapped it in my shawl" (77). Finally, Rebecca (or the woman or women with whom she has identified from such past historical events) is forced to give her baby wrapped in "the bundle" ("the bundle" being a synecdoche
Synecdoche
Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
for the baby wrapped up in a shawl) to one of the men. As if Rebecca were such a woman, she recalls getting on the train, describing how "we arrived at this place"—thus recalling the other "place" about which she asks Devlin early in the play, the "factory": "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he [her purported lover] took me to that place?" (21).
In the final lines of the play, as if the woman's experience were her own, Rebecca shifts again significantly from the third-person "she" used earlier relating to the woman to the first-person "I", while denying that she ever had or ever knew of "any baby":
REBECCA: And I said what baby
ECHO: what baby
REBECCA: I don't have a baby
ECHO: a baby
REBECCA: I don't know of any baby
ECHO: of any baby
Pause.
REBECCA: I don't know of any baby
Long silence.
BLACKOUT. (83–84)
World première
Ashes to Ashes was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep AmsterdamToneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands' largest repertory company. Its home base is the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam.-History:...
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is a production studio, theatre and independent cinema on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. It plays host to contemporary and international dramatic and dance performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.-History:In 1933, the...
, Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.
Ashes to Ashes is a 1996 play by English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
playwright Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
. It was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands' largest repertory company. Its home base is the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam.-History:...
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar,Ashes to Ashes, Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands' largest repertory company. Its home base is the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam.-History:...
Archived Webpage. Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is a production studio, theatre and independent cinema on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. It plays host to contemporary and international dramatic and dance performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.-History:In 1933, the...
, Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.Merritt, "Ashes to Ashes in New York" and "Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes: Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust" 83. Its English première by the Royal Court Theatre opened after the Dutch première, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, on 12 September 1996.
Setting
"Time: Now. .... A house in the country."Harold PinterHarold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
, Ashes to Ashes (London: Faber and Faber, 1996; New York: Grove Press, 1997) 1 (and n. pag. front matter). Subsequent page references to the Faber and Faber ed. will appear within parentheses in the text.
Setting
"Time: Now" (n. pag. [ii])Place: "A house in the country […] Early evening. Summer" (1).
Synopsis
The one-act play opens with Devlin and Rebecca, described as "Both in their forties", talking in what appears to be a home living room on an early summer evening. As the play develops, it becomes clear that Devlin and Rebecca are probably married, although their relationship to each other is not defined explicitly; it must be inferred. Initially, Devlin seems Rebecca's husband or lover, her therapist, and potentially her murderer. Some critics have described their discussion as more between a therapist and his patient than between two lovers or between a husband and a wife.Devlin questions Rebecca in forceful ways, and she reveals personal information and dream-like sequences to him. In their first exchange, Rebecca tells of a man who appears to be sexually abusing her and threatening to strangle her (1–27). Rebecca tells Devlin that she told the killer, "Put your hand round my throat" (3)—an act which Devlin acts out directly towards the end of the play (73–75), asking Rebecca to "Speak. Say it. Say 'Put your hand round my throat.' " (75). The first exchange is followed immediately by Devlin asking "Do you feel you're being hypnotized?" "Who by?" asks Rebecca. "By me," answers Devlin, adding "What do you think?", to which Rebecca retorts, "I think you're a fuckpig" (7–9).
In response to Devlin's further inquiries about her "lover", Rebecca relates several dream-like sequences involving the man who she has quoted initially (7–27). She tells Devlin that this "lover" worked as a "guide" for a "travel agency" (19). She goes on to ask, "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he took me to that place?" This place turns out to be "a kind of factory" peopled by his "workpeople" who "respected his . . . purity, his . . . conviction" (23–25). But then she tells Devlin, "He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers" (27).
After a "Silence", Rebecca changes the subject abruptly with: "By the way, I'm terribly upset" (27). She complains that a police siren which she had just heard has disappeared into the distance. Devlin replies that the police are always busy, and thus another siren will start up at any time and "you can take comfort in that at least. Can't you? You'll never be lonely again. You'll never be without a police siren. I promise you" (29–30). Rebecca says that while the sound of the siren is "fading away," she "knew it was becoming louder and louder for somebody else" (29) and while its doing so made her "feel insecure! Terribly insecure" (31), she hates the siren's "fading away; I hate it echoing away" (31). (At the end of the play, an "Echo" of her words occurs.)
Rebecca tells Devlin that she had been writing a note, and that when she put the pen she was using down, it rolled off the table:
REBECCA: It rolled right off, onto the carpet. In front of my eyes.
DEVLIN: Good God.
REBECCA: This pen, this perfectly innocent pen.
DEVLIN: You can't know it was innocent.
REBECCA: Why not?
DEVLIN: Because you don't know where it had been. You don't know how many other hands have held it, how many other hands have written with it, what other people have been doing with it. You know nothing of its history. You know nothing of its parents' history.
REBECCA: A pen has no parents. (33–39)
In another monologue Rebecca describes herself looking out the window of a summer house and seeing a crowd of people being led by "guides" toward the ocean, which they disappear into like lemmings (47–49). That leads to her description of a condition that she calls "mental elephantiasis" (49), in which "when you spill an ounce of gravy, for example, it immediately expands and becomes a vast sea of gravy," Rebecca says that "You are not the victim [of such an event], you are the cause of it" (51). Referring both to the "pen" and anticipating the references to "the bundle" later in the play, she explains, "Because it was you who spilt the gravy in the first place, it was you who handed over the bundle" (51).
After an exchange about family matters relating to "Kim and the kids"—Rebecca's sister, Kim, Kim's children, and Kim's estranged husband (55–63), in which Rebecca may be conveying her own attitude toward Devlin in commenting on Kim's attitude toward her own husband—"She'll never have him back. Never. She says she'll never share a bed with him again. Never. Ever." (61)—there is another "Silence" (65). Devlin says, "Now look, let's start again" (65). Rebecca tells Devlin, "I don't think we can start again. We started...a long time ago. We started. We can't start again. We can end again" (67). "But we've never ended," Devlin protests (67). Rebecca responds, "Oh, we have. Again and again and again. And we can end again. And again and again. And again" (67). That exchange and Rebecca's reference to him earlier as a "fuckpig" demonstrate Rebecca's strong hostility toward Devlin.
After another "Silence" and Rebecca's and Devlin's singing the refrain from song alluded to in the play's title " 'Ashes to ashes' — 'And dust to dust' — 'If the women don't get you' — 'The liquor must' " (69). After a "pause", Devlin says "I always knew you loved me. […] Because we like the same tunes", followed by another "Silence" (69).
After it, Devlin asks Rebecca why she has never told him about "this lover of yours" and says how he has "a right to be very angry indeed" that she did not, "Do you understand that?" (69–70).
After another "Silence" (71), instead of responding, Rebecca describes another sequence, where she is standing at the top of a building and sees a man, a boy, and a woman with a child in her arms in a snowy street below (71–73). In her monologue, she shifts suddenly from the third-person "she" to the first-person "I", and Rebecca (not the woman) is "held" in Rebecca's own "arms": "I held her to me," and she listens to its "heart […] beating" (73).
At that point (73), Devlin approaches Rebecca and begins to enact the scene described by Rebecca at the beginning of the play, directing her to "Ask me to put my hand round your throat" as she has earlier described her "lover" as doing (73–75).
The last scene of the play recalls cultural representations of Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
soldiers selecting women and children at train stations en route to concentration camps
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
(73–85). She begins by narrating the events in the third person: "She stood still. She kissed her baby. The baby was a girl" (73), but she switches from the third person to the first person in continuing her narrative. As this narration develops, an "Echo" repeats some of Rebecca's words as she recounts the experience of a woman who has walked onto a train platform with a "baby" wrapped up "in a bundle," beginning with: "They took us to the trains" ("ECHO: the trains"), and "They were taking the babies away" ("ECHO: the babies away"), and then Rebecca shifts from using the third person "she" to using the first-person "I" (77): "I took my baby and wrapped it in my shawl" (77). Finally, Rebecca (or the woman or women with whom she has identified from such past historical events) is forced to give her baby wrapped in "the bundle" ("the bundle" being a synecdoche
Synecdoche
Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
for the baby wrapped up in a shawl) to one of the men. As if Rebecca were such a woman, she recalls getting on the train, describing how "we arrived at this place"—thus recalling the other "place" about which she asks Devlin early in the play, the "factory": "Did I ever tell you about that place . . . about the time he [her purported lover] took me to that place?" (21).
In the final lines of the play, as if the woman's experience were her own, Rebecca shifts again significantly from the third-person "she" used earlier relating to the woman to the first-person "I", while denying that she ever had or ever knew of "any baby":
REBECCA: And I said what baby
ECHO: what baby
REBECCA: I don't have a baby
ECHO: a baby
REBECCA: I don't know of any baby
ECHO: of any baby
Pause.
REBECCA: I don't know of any baby
Long silence.
BLACKOUT. (83–84)
World première
Ashes to Ashes was first performed, in Dutch, by Toneelgroep AmsterdamToneelgroep Amsterdam
Toneelgroep Amsterdam is the Netherlands' largest repertory company. Its home base is the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, a classical 19th century theatre building in the heart of Amsterdam.-History:...
, the Netherlands' largest repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
company, in Amsterdam, as part of its 1996–1997 season, and directed by Titus Muizelaar, who reprised his production, in Dutch with English surtitles, as part of a double bill with Buff, by Gerardjan Rijnders, at the Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios
Riverside Studios is a production studio, theatre and independent cinema on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. It plays host to contemporary and international dramatic and dance performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.-History:In 1933, the...
, Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, from 23 through 27 June 1998.
The translation and dramaturgy were by Janine Brogt, the set was designed by Paul Gallis, and lighting was designed by Henk Bergsma, and the cast included:
The cast included:
London première
The London première was directed by the playwright Harold PinterHarold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
and designed by Eileen Diss for the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
, at the Ambassadors Theatre, in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, opening on 12 September 1996, with the following cast:
- Stephen ReaStephen ReaStephen Rea is an Irish film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in high profile films such as V for Vendetta, Michael Collins, Interview with the Vampire and Breakfast on Pluto...
(Devlin) - Lindsay DuncanLindsay DuncanLindsay Vere Duncan, CBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actress. On stage she won two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her performance in Les Liaisons dangereuses and Private Lives , and she starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Her most famous roles on television include:...
(Rebecca)Ashes to Ashes: Première, HaroldPinter.org. Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. (Includes excerpt from a contemporaneous review published in The Independent on Sunday.)
Lighting was designed by Mick Hughes, costumes designed by Tom Rand, and sound designed by Tom Lishman.
New York première
The American première, directed by the late Karel ReiszKarel Reisz
Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...
, was part of the 1998–1999 Laura Pels Theatre Season at the Gramercy Theatre, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in New York City.-History:The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist and Elizabeth Owens and now operates five theatres, all in Manhattan: the American Airlines Theatre ; Studio 54 ; the Stephen Sondheim Theatre The...
, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, from 7 February to 9 May 1999."Ashes to Ashes: New York Première", Roundabouttheatre.org, 1998–1999 season (archived performances). Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. Lindsay Duncan
Lindsay Duncan
Lindsay Vere Duncan, CBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actress. On stage she won two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her performance in Les Liaisons dangereuses and Private Lives , and she starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Her most famous roles on television include:...
reprised her role as Rebecca, and David Strathairn
David Strathairn
David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...
played the role of Devlin. Set and costume design was by Tony Walton
Tony Walton
Tony Walton is an English set and costume designer.Walton was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. He began his career in 1957 with the stage design for Noel Coward's Broadway production of Conversation Piece. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s he designed for the New...
, lighting design by Richard Pilbrow
Richard Pilbrow
Richard Pilbrow is an internationally renowned stage lighting designer, author, theatre consultant, and theatrical producer, film producer and television producer...
, and sound design by G. Thomas Clark.
London revival
Ashes to Ashes was revived in Spring 2001 in a double bill with Mountain LanguageMountain Language
Mountain Language is a one-act play written by Harold Pinter, first published in The Times Literary Supplement on 7–13 October 1988. It was first performed at the Royal National Theatre in London on 20 October 1988 with Michael Gambon and Miranda Richardson. Subsequently, it was published by...
, directed by Katie Mitchell
Katie Mitchell
Katrina Jane Mitchell OBE is an English theatre director. She is an Associate of the Royal National Theatre.-Life and career:Mitchell was raised in Hermitage, Berkshire and educated at Oakham School. Upon leaving Oakham she went up to Magdalen College, Oxford to read English...
, at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
, which went on to be performed at the Harold Pinter Festival at the Lincoln Center Festival 2001
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, in July and August 2001."Mountain Language and Ashes to Ashes", HaroldPinter.org. Accessed 28 Sept. 2008. (Includes full texts of contemporaneous reviews by Rachel Halliburton in The Evening Standard and Alastair Macaulay in the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
.)
Works cited
- Merritt, Susan Hollis. "Ashes to Ashes in New York". In The Pinter Review: Collected Essays 1997 and 1998. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale (eds.) Tampa. FL: University of Tampa Press, 1999. 156–59. ISBN 187985211X
- Merritt, Susan Hollis. "Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes: Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust". In The Pinter Review: Collected Essays 1999 and 2000. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale (eds.) Tampa. FL: University of Tampa Press, 2000. 73–84. ISBN 1879852136
- Pinter, HaroldHarold PinterHarold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
. Ashes to Ashes. London: Faber and FaberFaber and FaberFaber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
, 1996. ISBN 0571190278 (Parenthetical page references above are to the Grove Press edition. Pinter's textual pauses are indicated by his three spaced periods; other ellipses are indicated by three unspaced periods within brackets.)
External links
- "Ashes to Ashes" at HaroldPinter.org: The Official Website of International Playwright Harold Pinter.